W&M soccer turns heads by beating two No. 1s

The Tribe took down the No. 1-ranked team in the country for the second time in 10 days, edging North Carolina 1-0 Tuesday night in Chapel Hill.

That win came on the heels of a 1-0 win at 24th-ranked Elon and a 3-2, double-overtime win against then-No. 1 Creighton at Old Dominion's tournament Sept. 15.

"I think we've kind of found an identity," coach Chris Norris said. "We're playing very, very well defensively. We're utilizing our strengths on the attacking side of things, which has been primarily moving the ball from one side to the other and then attacking down the flanks.

"And I think we're learning to compete consistently, so regardless of what day it is or who we're playing or what the venue is, we're going out there with the will to win, as opposed to just the desire to win."

The Tribe (4-2-1) already has matched last year's win total, demonstrating not only the ability to finish scoring opportunities, but compete on mostly equal footing against top-shelf opponents.

"We're fortunate that our schedule put us in a position to play those games," Norris said. "The most important thing is that our performances against those teams were very good. We were solid defensively, we created chances and we had our fair share of possession.

"It wasn't like we went into those games thinking that we were going to bunker in and hang on and hope that we caught a break. We came out feeling good about our performances. I think that's the biggest positive, is that we put together good performances against top opponents. We feel like we can beat anybody at the moment."

The Tribe traditionally is sound defensively, but the difference this season is its offensive production. Last season, W&M scored 20 goals all season, just 12 in its final 13 matches. W&M has 10 goals thus far through seven matches.

Notably, the Tribe is getting goals from multiple players. Six different players have scored goals, six have notched assists.

Sophomore forward Jackson Eskay got the game-winner at UNC, poking in a ball near the goal line in the 73rd minute. Defender Roshan Patel scored on a header in the 108th minute in the win against Elon. Three different players scored against Creighton, with redshirt freshman Jeff Bombelles getting the game-winner in double overtime.

"We didn't score a lot of goals the last couple years, so it wasn't as if we were returning a guy that we could really lean on — a 10-to-15 goal guy," Norris said. "So we knew that everyone would have to chip in and accept some responsibility for scoring goals. We knew we had the players to do it."

Patel and senior Will Smith anchor a defense that's allowed only five goals and provided a security blanket for redshirt freshman keeper Mac Phillips, who has played all seven matches this season.

Norris believed that the Tribe would be better than last season. W&M returned the bulk of its starters and contributors, and last season's 4-10-4 record prompted the players to redouble their individual efforts and the coaches to tweak some things and play to strengths.

William and Mary's 4-0 win at Old Dominion on Sept. 7 was an indication that this year could be different.

"The Old Dominion game was critical for us," Norris said. "I thought that gave us a picture of what we could be like. It kind of propelled us to getting everyone on the same page, as far as buying into a way that we could play that would really maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. That's been reconfirmed by our more recent results."

Norris is happy for the notoriety that comes with beating No. 1, but he said that parity in college soccer almost guarantees many teams atop the rankings before season's end. He recognizes that there's still a conference season and many goals ahead.

"We're on a positive run right now and it's great and it seems to beget more good things happening," he said. "But the opposite is true, as well, when we were on a negative run last year, it seemed like everything snowballs and gets piled on top of you. We have that memory fresh in our mind and our guys don't want to feel that way again. I'm hoping that those experiences will help us not let our performance level drop."